More homes hope for South

The Government is preparing to unveil plans for the biggest house-building programme in decades, to tackle the housing crisis in London and the South-East.

Chancellor Gordon Brown is set to announce extra funds and a relaxation of planning controls to allow more affordable homes to be built on greenfield sites.

Details of the move emerged as housing minister Lord Rooker branded the current level of house building a "national disgrace".

Last year only 162,000 new homes were built, fewer than at any time since the Second World War, fuelling a price boom that has made it even more difficult for thousands of key workers and young people to get on the property ladder.